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The Red Hat Global Desktop

The Red Hat Global Desktop was announced at the Red Hat summit earlier this month. This product is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, but with significant differences in the support and distribution model. Red Hat is partnering with Intel to build affordable solutions for local governments and small businesses in developing countries. Intel will provide free drivers and a wide variety of hardware certified to work with this software.

The Global Desktop will not be available as a download. Instead a base system will be available to vendors. The vendors will be able to use it to provide customized solutions and support for their customers. Red Hat will be a back end support provider for those vendors.

Red Hat developer Christopher Blizzard summed it up nicely in his blog: "In summary, this is about growing the Linux client market. This isn't about trying to replace some small set of Windows desktops in the developed world or trying to line up a relatively small number of units through a US OEM. This is about getting out there where people will grow up on free and open source software and understand that it's not just free-as-in-cheap, but is also better and empowering to how they lead their lives and run their businesses. It's just the first step, but it's an important one."

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New Releases

64 Studio 1.4.0 'Ariadne' released!

64 Studio is aimed at digital content creation, including audio, video, graphics and publishing tools. The latest development release, 1.4.0 'Ariadne', is the first release candidate for the forthcoming 64 Studio 2.0, which will retain compatibility with Debian Etch to create a long-lived and stable creative desktop.

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CentOS 4.5 is released for i386, x86_64, and ia64

The CentOS development team has announced the release of CentOS 4.5 for i386, x86_64 and ia64. It is available on all CentOS.org mirrors and via bittorrent.

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Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 AS U5 now available

Update 5 of Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 has been released. "Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 is aimed at people who need a stable OS with a long lifespan but don't want an expensive bundled support contract. It is derived from open source software with only four packages modified in order to replace trademarks and logos with our own. Features of Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 include the Linux 2.6 kernel, SELinux, GNOME 2.8, Samba 3.0, Logical Volume Manager 2, PCI Express support and NFSv.4."

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SimplyMEPIS Localized French and Spanish CDs Ready for Testing

MEPIS has announced test versions of new French and Spanish 32 bit CDs for SimplyMEPIS 6.5. "The new ISOs are available at MEPIS online mirrors in the testing directory. Suggestions and fixes should be submitted at the appropriate forum, http://www.mepis-france.org or http://www.mepisimo.com"

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Slax Tools 070521

A new version of Slax Tools has been released. Slax Tools are graphical applications that simplify process of generating custom version of live distribution Slax.

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Distribution News

Bits from Debian

Petter Reinholdtsen takes a look at the debian package usage counter, popularity-contest or popcon. "The debian package usage counter, popularity-contest, reached 50,000 contributors a few hours ago. This is the number of machines reporting their list of installed packages and related information every week. The information collected is among other things used to make sure the most popular packages are on the installation CDs and DVDs."

It looks like the sparc32 port will be dropped for Lenny. "Another reason is that dropping sparc32 support will allow optimization for sparc64 which will result in improved support for the modern sparc systems from Sun and Hitachi. Other distributions have already made this choice."

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Automatic YUM Local Mirror GURU GUIDE

There's a new GURU GUIDE available that documents the technique for having YUM automatically use a local mirror without any configuration changes on the clients. Click below for the announcement.

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Munich's KDE Desktops Usability Certified (KDE.News)

KDE.News reports that the LiMuX distribution (based on Debian and KDE) created for the city of Munich has been certified to meet the international usability standard ISO 9241.

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openSUSE mailing lists

Here's a reminder that the migration from lists.suse.com to lists.opensuse.org is complete and support for the old mailinglist names will be dropped on June 1, 2007. This email will help you find new openSUSE mailing lists.

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Ubuntu Technical Board meeting minutes

Here are the minutes for the Ubuntu Technical Board meeting held on May 22, 2007. Topics include the process for applying to become an Ubuntu Core Developer, and a look at future meetings (scheduling changes, getting the minutes out, and getting items on the agenda).

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Distribution Newsletters

Fedora Weekly News Issue 88

The Fedora Weekly News for May 19, 2007 looks at the deep freeze for Fedora 7, the fedora-cs-list for Czech and Slovak Fedora users, Fedora Rawhide Live Images, a summary from the Red Hat Summit, F7 Firstboot and EULA, and much more.

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Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #41

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for May 19, 2007 covers the new Torrent Team, progress of the Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Project, newly approved members and LoCos, Community Council and Forum Council meetings, a look at the Xubuntu Team and more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 203

The DistroWatch Weekly for May 21, 2007 is out. "The feature story of the latest issue is a review of DeLi Linux 0.7.2, one of the few desktop distributions that targets old computers - those with as little as 8 MB of RAM. Does it really work as advertised? And are the included applications usable? Find out in our exclusive first look review by Susan Linton. In the news section, Mandriva terminates the contracts with several of its developers in order to cut costs, the openSUSE community launches an ambitious project to reduce the boot time of the distribution to 5 seconds, and Fedora removes Beagle from default install due to unresolved bugs. Finally, don't miss the stunning new desktop distribution from Brazil's Famelix project."

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Miscellaneous Articles

What is new for Debian-Med in Etch. (LinuxMedNews)

LinuxMedNews looks at improvments in Debian-Med, a Debian derived distribution that focuses on medical applications. "With the recent release of Debian Etch, the Debian-Med project strengthened its current three main areas of activity: imaging, bioinformatics, and medical practice."

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My Great Linux System Repair Adventure (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch presents a tale of thunderstorms, lightning strikes, fried hardware, and SystemRescueCd. "This was turning into a really bad day. So, now I pulled out my freshly burned copy of SystemRescueCd 0.35. SystemRescueCd, if you've never met it, is the best single CD bootable system repair disk I know."

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Beryl, Compiz, And Metisse - The 3D Desktop on Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge looks at getting the most out the 3D desktop updates in Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. "To make it easier to try out and switch between all these 3D desktop technologies, Mandriva has developed a tool available in the Mandriva Control Center and directly from the login screen. This tool offers the choice between a Metisse desktop, a '3D Cube' desktop or no 3D desktop. For expert users, advanced options exist for the '3D Cube' desktop, allowing you to manually choose Compiz or Beryl and set whether the AIGLX or Xgl underlying server technology is used."

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The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu Studio 7.04 (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge sets up a Ubuntu Studio 7.04 desktop. "Ubuntu Studio is a special Linux distribution tailored to the needs of audio, video, and graphic enthusiasts or professionals. Because Ubuntu Studio is based on Ubuntu, you are not limited to this area, but can install any application that is available for Ubuntu, thus turning Ubuntu Studio in a normal desktop for everyday use. This tutorial shows how you can turn Ubuntu Studio 7.04 into a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop."

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Distribution reviews

VectorLinux SOHO: A better Slackware than Slackware (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO. "VectorLinux includes its own graphical system configuration suite called the Vector Administration System Menu. The program opens a window containing a menu that lets you change your user password, set up which window manager to use, reset the skeleton files entries (skeleton files set default behaviors for an application or process to make it more functional or user-friendly) in part or as a whole for a fresh configuration, and perform deeper system configuration requiring the root password. With that fourth choice, you can configure the autodetection utility, manage users, set up the X server, start up services and boot procedures, set up hostname and networking options, configure hardware devices, and configure filesystems."

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New PCLinuxOS 2007 looks great, works well (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews PCLinuxOS 2007. "PCLinuxOS is a live CD distribution that enables users to test Linux without actually having to install it. The highly anticipated new version, PCLinuxOS 2007, was released on Monday. Its intuitive selection of software, high level of stability and functionality, and the quality of the graphics make this the distribution's best release ever. PCLOS began almost four years ago as a fork of MandrakeLinux 9.2. Subsequent releases were built and updated upon the previous version. PCLOS 2007 still utilizes some source code from MandrivaLinux, as seen in the startup wizard, hard drive installer, and the PCLinuxOS Control Center."

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